


Coventry Carol

by igrab



Category: Merlin (TV), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Multi, bizarre crossover pairings, but my OTPs are showing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:52:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrab/pseuds/igrab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But there was a dangerous aspect to Miss Rachel Dare that Merlin knew, Rachel knew he knew, and Arthur couldn't possibly know about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coventry Carol

**Author's Note:**

> This was written quite a while back, somewhere vaguely in Season 2 of Merlin and before Heroes of Olympus (not that that's at all important). It was a christmas gift, hence the title :3

"Merlin," the prince said, and he knew it was going to be a bad morning. A terrible, bad, no-good morning. It was _that_ tone of voice, the one that Arthur only used when he was about to ask Merlin to do something completely thankless and not thank him.

"Sire?" He held out hope, though. There was always hope. Maybe, on the scale of things Arthur could make Merlin feel miserable about, this was one of the easier ones.

"...I need you to go see Rachel."

Oh. _Oh._ Well that was a double-edged sword - not literally, that would have been unpleasant and also dangerous - but _figuratively_. It didn't fit on the scale.

See, the problem with Arthur's latest conquest and supposed love of his life - he said that every time - was first that she was a foreigner. Fine. He'd fallen in love with _Gwen_ , a merchantess - albeit a foreign one - should hypothetically be a step up.

But there was a dangerous aspect to Miss Rachel Dare that Merlin knew, Rachel knew he knew, and Arthur couldn't possibly know about.

She was a seer. An Oracle, by her own tongue, the chosen vessel of the Oracle of Delphi. Merlin wouldn't've even believed her but she'd made a prophecy on that fist day they'd met, and it had sounded so much like the Great Dragon's cryptic and ultimately selfish messages that Merlin had simply been shocked into belief. She was an Oracle. She had the Sight. She was a vessel for magical power. And the Great Dragon's prophecies, maybe there was some truth to them after all.

The third problem was that Merlin really liked Rachel, and he was fairly certain Arthur was going to wake up one morning and forget she existed entirely. It would make her sad, and Merlin didn't want her to be sad. She was a good person. She deserved better than Arthur.

He kept telling himself this. He recited these reasons, perfectly good, solid reasons as he walked out of Arthur's chambers with a much-belabored scroll that very likely contained bad poetry. He had to keep thinking about this, because otherwise he'd start thinking of the _upsides_ to being sent to the residence of Rachel Dare.

"...I dropped him on his ass. I didn't _mean_ to, but he was coming at me and I lost track of what I was - oh, hi, Merlin."

 _Hello, sex god. I mean-_ "Morning, Perseus."

Perseus Jackson - _Sir_ Perseus Jackson - was the finest specimen of delicious man that Merlin had ever laid eyes on. The second time Merlin had been sent to deliver things to Rachel's place - the time _after_ the creepy green smoke and the prophecy - he'd been sitting there at her table in half-plate, pushing sweaty bangs out of his face. His ocean-blue eyes had locked with Percy's and - oh, he fell harder than a ton of foundation stones. He fell harder than he'd fallen for Lancelot, which was _saying_ something, and that was all before he'd actually opened his mouth and started speaking and constantly looked at Merlin with his gorgeous eyes and these little lip-curling grins.

Oh yeah. He had it bad.

Today, though, there was something... off. Something a little forced in his posture, a little bit of nervous tension in limbs that were usually sprawling. (Merlin knew this, because he spent an inordinate amount of time staring at them.) "...Hey, I guess I'll. I've got to. Armor to polish!"

He grabbed his sword belt off the table and dashed out of the door. Merlin leaned as he watched him go, pouting quite visibly. "What's gotten into him?"

"It's nothing." Ah, there she was, the lady of the house. Rachel was freckled and redheaded and lovely in a natural, understated way. Kind of like Gwen, actually, and she had Gwen's frizziness to her hair, but by contrast she was much more confident and self-assured; independent, and certainly accepting. She'd become a fast friend to Merlin, his misgivings about Arthur notwithstanding.

Today, though, she looked a bit tired, and maybe a little sad. Merlin felt his heart go out to her. He handed over the letter and she took it with a grateful smile, unrolling it instantly. Merlin sat down in Percy's vacated chair and waited, expectantly.

As she read, her face seemed to light up all over - starting with her eyes, then a slow smile grew on her lips, and then she was beaming and usually this is when she'd start laughing in unfettered joy - but not today. Today, the smile faded. The light died in her eyes, leaving a hollow darkness. For a moment Merlin thought Arthur might have actually dumped her through note-passing - which was so many kinds of not okay - but she smiled again, soft and rueful, and rolled up the note with a tender delicacy and placed it in the flowerpot with all the others.

"Merlin," she said, "There's something I have to tell you."

•

"Is that your knight?"

Arthur pointed with a sweaty hand and sword, though Rachel didn't need to look to see what was going on. They'd come here to show off and Percy was doing a fine job of it, making Arthur's knights look like a bunch of half-wits. Rachel sat on the sidelines and did needlework. Very manly and all, fighting, but not really her thing. She did look up at the voice, though.

She knew who he _was_. Everyone did. They'd come all the way from Athens and even there, the Camelot prince was famous. Albeit for slightly different reasons.

"No, I just found him on the side of the road and gave him a sword. Why, is he good?" She fluttered her eyelashes.

Arthur scowled at her. "None of your sass," he muttered, but it didn't sound like a reprimand. It was warm, familiar almost, and after a second he seemed to realize what he'd said and instantly regretted it. "Sorry," he muttered. "It's - my servant, he has a bit of a mouth. It's something he might say."

"I don't doubt it." _Very nice eyes, though,_ she thought. And all the stories were true - he was _quite_ noble, underneath those airs and graces. She could see so much potential in him. "But, to answer your question - we're traveling together, but he isn't mine." _That place of glory is reserved for someone far better than I, and considerably less female._

"Oh." Arthur seemed surprised at that answer, which answered a question he probably hadn't been asking in the first place, but Rachel wanted to make things clear. They were not together. She was a free woman, relatively speaking. These were the things that handsome princes absolutely needed to know.

One of his knights called out his name, and Arthur turned to go, sighing. But at the last second, he turned back around and leaned both his elbows on the fence, peering as close as he could. "What's your name?"

"Rachel Dare," she said, then inclined her head back towards the knights. "Percy knows where to find me."

He grinned a dazzling, grateful smile, then loped off to join the others.

Her magical senses were moaning at her. _This is going to end so badly._

She cheerfully bent to her sewing again, blissfully ignoring her instincts. After all, there was no fun in life without a little free will, was there?

•

Merlin wished he were still standing, so he could sit down again. Just for effect.

"Why?" he quickly asked, leaning forward. "Was it something he said? What's in the letter?"

"This doesn't have anything to do with the letter." Rachel rubbed her hands on her apron edge, sighed. "You're not going to let me go without an explanation, will you?"

"You _can't_. You can't just up and leave like this." His eyes were big and round, he was trying every trick in the book - short of actual magic, because Rachel would see right through it - to convince her that she should reconsider.

"...Apparently, not." She moved to the table and took a seat next to him, then reached out and folded his hands in hers.

"The reason I'm leaving is because I'm pregnant."

Woah. Wait. What? "You're what?"

Rachel frowned. " _Pregnant._ Having a baby. Yes, before you ask, Arthur's."

It finally dawned on him, though it was just about as weird as anything she'd ever told him, which was, you know, pretty weird. "Can't you make it go away?"

She sighed _very pointedly_ at him. "It's a _child_ , not a disease. And even if I could, I wouldn't want to. Any child of Arthur's is going to be unreasonably gorgeous."

Merlin couldn't really argue with that line of logic. Arthur _was_ gorgeous. "...Okay, okay. But why leave? I mean, obviously things could get a little weird and it would probably be a really bad idea for Arthur to know about having bastard children but - it's not the end of the world, right?" He really didn't want to cry; this would be Very Bad all things considered, not in the least because Arthur seemed to have a sixth sense for when Merlin had been crying. "You could come back. You could hide. I don't know. You're happy here, aren't you?"

She patted his head, looking rueful. "...Very. And, yes, that's a concern, but... that's not why I'm leaving."

"Then why?"

Rachel Dare pulled her hands away and leaned back, and when she sat up straight in her chair like that, she looked older - wiser - fiercer. "Because Uther Pendragon decrees that any who practice magic shall be burned at the stake, and I would never, not for the sake of _any_ man, put a child of mine in that kind of danger."

Merlin felt the bottom drop out of his heart. Sometimes - sometimes, he forgot about the law. It was just such a part of his life now that he didn't think about it, beyond making sure _Arthur_ didn't know and that had kind of grown into something more than a law. It was complicated. But then, he would remember. He would understand that there were people in this city, himself included, that lived false, terrified lives, all in the simple name of survival. When she put it like that - of course. Of course he understood. Of course.

"Maybe," she began quietly, and he looked up. "Maybe someday. When Arthur is King, and you stand at his side as lawful, proud Court Magician." She ran her hands through his hair. "Maybe then, you'll see us again."

And that should have been a very meaningful moment. But Merlin was occasionally a teenage boy, and a reasonably shallow one at that.

"Hang on, _us_?"

Rachel blinked. "Yes. Percy, and I."

What?! "He's leaving, too?"

"Well, yes." Rachel gave him a look like he was mildly retarded, which was an improvement on how most people looked at him, so he didn't mind. "We're traveling together. He's searching for someone."

"Oh." Then he realized what she probably meant by 'someone', and his face fell even further. " _Oh._ "

Rachel leaned in and patted Merlin on the arm, trying to hide her smile and failing. "You'll forget all about him soon enough."

Oh, he doubted that. But he grinned up at her anyway, cheeky and insolent. "Is that a premonition, Miss Oracle?"

"Just a hunch." And she grinned right back. "But I'm usually right anyway."


End file.
